In Memoriam: Dr. Daniel Belliveau
Many of us were saddened to learn of the passing of our friend and colleague Dan Belliveau. Dan was a gentleman, a devoted educator and a good friend to many of us at Western. For those of you that did not have the opportunity to meet Dan, he graduated from the PhD program in ACB under the mentorship of Dr. Chris Naus. After completing his PhD, Dan moved to Montreal to complete a post-doctoral fellowship at the Montreal Neurological Institute with Dr. Freda Miller. Following a short stint in industry, Dan returned to Western and began his career as a faculty member jointly appointed to ACB and Health Sciences. Dan was particularly engaged in anatomy teaching and served as a member of the ACB Graduate Affairs Committee for many years. Dan eventually became a full-time member of the faculty of Health Sciences and Chair of the Department. He remained devoted to education, particularly anatomy training and won the prestigious Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching. Dan was also very active on multiple committees in the Faculty Association (UWOFA) and was President of UWOFA during the last round of contract negotiations. For his longstanding record of excellence in serving UWOFA, he won the CAUT Distinguished Service Award and the Allan Heinicke Memorial Services Award. In the last few years before his passing, Dan was appointed Dean of Science at Saint Francis Xavier University, his undergraduate Alma mater. When Dan left Western, he was very much looking forward to his new role and described it as his ‘dream job’.
In addition to his excellence in teaching and service at Western, Dan was also highly engaged in the community serving in many capacities ranging from hockey to education/daycare and his church. He also graciously hosted many memorable poker nights for faculty at his home.
Dan was kind, engaged, wise, intelligent and dedicated and he retained all of these admirable qualities despite the serious health challenges he faced for many years. The remarkable candour, courage and optimism with which he faced his health challenges was truly inspiring. Western lowered the flags to half-mast to honour Dan and those of us in ACB will always remember our good friend and colleague Dan Belliveau.
